


the far distant spring

by crickets



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	the far distant spring

Richard doesn't kid himself by ignoring the fact that she reminds him of Isabella. In fact, he'd say it's one of his favorite things about her.

But he knows, and so does she, that she is _not_ Isabella.

Alex is no replacement, no quick fuck to erase the hurt for the momentary duration of his orgasm when he comes inside her. And if she were, she wouldn't be the first. But no, Alex is much more than that.

So when the day comes that he knows that it's time to leave, this time for good, he takes her with him.

Richard doesn't read minds. He can't see the future. But Jacob isn't the best at keeping secrets, not from Richard at least, and he gets the sense that the island is no longer a safe place anymore.

 _For either of them._

-

This won't be the first time she's been off-island.

Ben had wanted her to learn about the world first hand, asked Richard to take her to museums and exhibits and libraries. To let her explore the world while Richard assisted with recruiting.

It had all been very innocent until the night of her seventeenth birthday. She got drunk on the tiny liquor bottles in the hotel fridge, practically attacked Richard when he entered the room. Richard could taste the alcohol on her tongue, feel her nipples hard beneath her nightgown, and had a vague sense that this was not exactly his finest moment.

Still, he had pushed inside her, held her down on the scratchy motel bedspread, took her virginity.

 _Sin is not so big a worry when you know you'll never die._

Now, there is little ceremony between them when they're together. Richard will have her whenever he wants her, whenever she comes knocking, whichever comes first.

She doesn't even blink when he wakes her in the night, tells her the sub is leaving in a half an hour.

Nothing seems amiss, she simply wonders where they might be going, wonders how long it will be until he's inside of her again, teenage hormones fueling her appetite for him.

He doesn't touch her on their travels, barely speaks. His face, although nearly always stoic, is serious, hard-edged, almost scared. When they pull up to a house in a quiet neighborhood, in a town she doesn't know the name of, couldn't find on a map, with a sold sign in the front yard, it tells her everything she needs to know.

-

Three months go by and Alex begins to feel trapped. Richard is as distant as ever and she has to laugh at herself. A girl who grew up on an island, feeling trapped by all this land, concrete, trees, and endless, endless earth.

It's ironic, she thinks.

The whole thing.

-

Richard watches her when she passes by, a yellow and white dress swishing at her sides.

Alex has long since stopped asking why they're there, when they'll be back. She's stopped sneaking into his bed at night, waking him with her hand on his cock. She's tired of him turning her away, tired of getting no answer.

"Where are you going?" he asks her.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she tells him, slams the door behind her.

-  
He's easy, he suspects. She's already got him. Just the thought of her out there, with someone else, without him. And even Richard doesn't know why he's been pushing her away.

Mostly he's afraid she'll ask about the others, her mother, Ben, even Karl. She has this way of looking at him when she's laying in his arms, her eyes soft around the corners, getting all his secrets out of him. It was a night like that that he had told her about Isabella, about his deal with Jacob. He thinks she'll ask him why he couldn't have saved them too, why she was the only one.

He won't know what to tell her. Won't know how to explain.

-

When she comes home that night he's waiting for her in the dark.

He closes the space between them and backs her up against the bookcase. Alex's make-up is smudged, though not from crying and he lowers his head to her neck, inhales. She smells of sex and booze and he can already feel himself growing hard beneath his jeans.

Alex leans up, brushes her lips against his lightly, not quite a kiss. Richard nips at her bottom lip once before taking her mouth fully in his. Her hands are already at the top button of his jeans, and he can hear the sound of his zipper being lowered. A sound escapes from her lips when he pulls the straps of her dress down, kissing her neck. She slides her hands down the backs of his jeans, shoves them down his ass. Richard grabs her by the waist, lifts her up until she's got both legs wrapped around him, her dress hiked up just so. He hooks one finger around her panties and yanks it aside, he can feel she's already wet. Did he do that? Or was it someone else? Richard finds that he doesn't really care and he wastes no time thrusting inside of her. Alex groans, her head banging against the wooden shelf behind her, and Richard reaches around to cup her head while balancing her with is other arm.

He fucks her against the bookcase until he feels her breathing getting shallower, until he can feel a familiar pull at his cock. His knees nearly buckle when he comes, and he almost drops her when they make their way to the hard wood floor. Alex reaches between them, her fingers going to her clit and Richard's hands join her there. She lets him do the work, thumbing over her the tiny sensitive flesh until she's calling out his name.

-

Later, when they're back in his bed, clothes finally gone and out of the way completely, Alex rests in his arms.

This is that moment, the moment she'll look at him and he won't be able to do anything but tell her the truth.

"They're all dead," she says. "Aren't they?"

Richard sighs. "We don't know that," he tells her.

"But we don't know they're not," she presumes.

"We don't know they're not," he echoes.

Richard runs a hand down her naked side, watches as she closes her eyes, a few stray tears escaping.

"Thank you," she tells him. "For bringing me here."

After a moment, Richard says, "I would have stayed if it weren't for you."

Alex kisses him then, finally the truth.

"Thank you," she says again.

 _-fin_


End file.
